French identity cards of
that period were easy to reproduce since the card itself could be purchased
from any tobacconist. The same merchant also sold the revenue stamp,
the mark of an official document. Photomatons, the rage at
the time in department stores, railroad stations, and other public places,
furnished the necessary photographs. The only real difficulty was
in obtaining the official stamp of the locality which was supposed to have
issued the card. This stamp is what officially tied the picture to
the document. Generally it depicted a large seated Marianne, with
the name and the department of the locality inscribed in a circle around
it. A pair of thumb prints and the signature of the owner made the
document complete.

My first false identity
card originated on November 11, 1942, from the Préfecture
of the Hérault Department, of which Montpellier is the capital.
Georges Crespy, a Graduating Class student of the seminary, knew a sympathetic
official at the Préfecture. Georges delivered my photo
and pre-printed card, purchased that very morning, to his friend, who filled
in the name and personal data. Thus Pierre Séguy was born.

I had not even chosen this
name for myself. I later learned that it was taken from an advertising
calendar from the "Dock Séguy," a local supermarket, which hung
on the wall at the Préfecture. Pierre was a biblical
name. (It was almost mine, since my mother wanted to call her twins
Peter and Paul. My father, I was told, chose the name Herbert because
of his admiration for Herbert Hoover's relief work in Europe after the
First World War.)

Crespy had worked for the
2ème
Bureau, the intelligence arm of the French Army, in 1939. At
his suggestion, we chose Amiens for my new hometown, since its city hall
and all its records had conveniently burned to the ground during the German
Invasion of 1940, making the verification of the document strictly impossible.
I retained my birth date (November 5, 1921) because of the old undercover
officers' trick of asking for this point blank: The answer would
have to be totally automatic; the slightest hesitation would give away
a fake identity. Georges also told me never to turn around or react
in any way to my old name whispered behind me. This was another classic
device used to unmask agents whose prior name had been found out.